It's strange that the word toilet sounds crude as for a lady to complete her 'toilet' was considered very gentile. In posh circles one never says toilet, but lavatory, which always strikes me as even worse!

Interesting subject! How about that! Loo of the year! LOL! Yes, I'd heard of the "Waterloo" link before and also that of "Regardez l'eau" during medieval times!The word 'toilet' sounds crude to your ears but normal to mine! As an English native, asking for the bathroom is when you want to take a bath and I never understood what a restroom was! To rest? What about the "powder room"?! Who powders their noses any more? The expression I like the least is: "The little girl's room" as I'm no longer a 'little girl'!!!In English I talk about 'the loo' and in French I say "je vais au petit coin"!Petit = small and coin = corner! As in 'going to the little room' which I find sounds quite sweet! Over here, toilets with a washbasin are often separate from the bathroom, so asking for the bathroom could turn out to be embarrassing!

When we first moved over and I was adjusting to asking for the "toilet" (Harrogate may be posh, but it's still Yorkshire!), I giggled because growing up in the States we are corrected to say "restroom" as the polite term and "bathroom" is the more at-home, comfortable term. Then we move somewhere where adults say "wee" and "poo" and fancy restaurants direct me to the "toilet"! Now, I admit, it's taking me some getting used to to revert back to "restroom"!!

Other "descriptive" names for the loo are: the throne (room), the khazi, the WC, the porcelain telephone, the bog (one I generally use), the dunny (Australian), the crap*er (used a lot), the little boys room, the heads (on a boat/ship), the pis*er, the latrine and the privy. If you want to be "subtle" about visiting the loo, quite a few blokes I know at work (including me) use the term "going to see a man about a dog".

I have to confess that when I was choosing names for my daughter, I was put off Lucy (otherwise a favourite of mine) by the idea that she could be teased at school with the connection to loo, or loo seat (and I notice that a previous commenter had this problem).

In British English, we pronounce "in lieu of" with a definite Y. We say "in leeyoo of". I noticed that in American English, it was "in loo of". I wonder if we're squeamish about dropping the Y because of the word loo.